The emperor spoke, and his words were true. Li Shimin really said what he said, after returning from Chen's mansion, that night he summoned the eldest grandson Wuji, Fang Xuanling and other prime ministers to business the affairs of the Maritime Silk Road, and asked Chen Fei to describe the exotic customs to them.

The next day, the court preliminarily approved a proposal to build a maritime Silk Road.

At the end of the 19th year of Zhenguan, when the first snowflakes fall in winter, the Jiangnan Shipyard in Yangzhou is officially completed, and next spring, the first batch of timber will be delivered, and at the same time, a large number of shipwrights will be recruited to start building treasure ships.

In any case, the Maritime Silk Road project is the first step, and Chen Fei believes that as long as this first step goes smoothly, the era of navigation of the Tang Empire will definitely come!

Of course, that's all for later, the shipyard has just been built, and it is not known when the fleet will be completed. Now what he has to do is to work hard to promote Datang's industrial level.

That's right, during this time, Chen Fei was pleasantly surprised to find that Datang had signs of transitioning from an agrarian society to an industrial society!

Although the hallmark of stepping into industrial society was the appearance of the steam engine, Chen Fei would not build any steam engine now. However, Datang's handicraft industry is becoming more and more developed.

With the promotion of high-yield crops such as sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes throughout the country, and substantial breakthroughs in new varieties of hybrid rice, the people of Datang no longer have to worry about food.

There is a surplus of grain, and the peasants are not satisfied with living a life of farming every day. Especially the processing workshops founded by Chen Ji, I heard that the wages of the workers inside are very considerable, which makes the hearts of the people outside itch, and many people are desperately trying to rely on the relationship and want to work inside.

Those who worked in the workshops and received a decent salary quickly became wealthy. They take the wages they earn and go to the liquor store or the market to consume, which drives the consumption of other industries.

When the benefits of other industries come up, they naturally want to learn from Chen Ji and make their business bigger, so they also follow Chen Ji's example, open workshops, expand the market, and so on. This attracted many farmers who could not enter Chen Ji to work here, and they also obtained a relatively considerable income. Of course, there is not as high a salary as Chen Kee.

It's like a cycle, Datang's commerce and agriculture are interdependent, snowballing. Those small private workshops have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, especially around Chang'an City, which has almost become the world of small workshops. There were four or five workers in the smaller workshops, and a dozen workers in the larger ones.

Although it is not comparable to the factories of later generations, this is already a great progress, and Chen Fei believes that as long as this momentum can be maintained, Datang will inevitably step into the industrial society ahead of schedule.

Moreover, Chen Feikai's library not only has literacy courses, but also algorithm courses, and he has used the [treasure chest system] to query a lot of knowledge about physics and chemistry, edited it into a book, and placed it in the library.

Although Datang is still popular literature, he was pleasantly surprised to find that many people would also be interested in these books and read physics or chemistry books with relish. I believe that if this development continues, the advent of industrial society will not be long in coming.

The reason why Chen Fei cares so much about the arrival of the industrial society is mainly because he is a modern person and knows what the arrival of the industrial society means to the Tang Dynasty and the world!

Especially now Europe is still in a poor period when even eating is a problem, and the agricultural society can only be said to have just begun, but the Tang Dynasty has bought the industrial society at this time, how can you still play with us? Looking for abuse? Come on, come on! Lao Tzu gives you a hand!

The reason why China had such a tragic dark history in the previous life was precisely because Europe had entered a highly developed industrial society, and the Manchu government was still resting on its laurels and immersed in the dream of an agricultural power.

Actually? Even the agrarian powers are fantasized by the rulers themselves! The exploited people can't even eat enough, how can we talk about a big agricultural country? It's just a joke!

Now Chen Fei wants to push Datang into the industrial society when Datang's national strength is strong, so that he does not have to worry about the invasion of European powers in the future. On the other hand, it is not certain who will bully whom at that time! Their treasure ship is already being built, and I believe that it will not be long before they can take the treasure ship and set off along the coastline, and if they don't get it right, they can build a few colonies in Europe, which is simply beautiful.

Of course, before that, the Tang Dynasty had to have a problem to solve - the Western Turks and the Arab Empire.

Since the Tang Dynasty strengthened the defenders of the Western Regions, the Arab Empire found it more and more difficult to rob the Tang Dynasty, this neighbor was even stronger than he imagined, and his military strength was even far superior to him.

After hitting a wall one after another and losing soldiers, they also knew the power of the Tang Dynasty and knew that it was not appropriate for a large-scale conflict to break out between the two countries, so they left a part of the army to turn into bandits and continue to rob merchants on the Silk Road on a small scale, and on the other hand, they joined forces with the Western Turks to capture the declining Roman Empire and other small countries.

Although the Arab Empire has less trouble on the Tang Dynasty's borders, Chen Fei clearly knows that if it is allowed to develop, the Arab Empire and the Western Turks will definitely become the most troublesome trouble for the Tang Dynasty in the future.

In the history of the previous life, the Arab Empire had a large-scale battle with the Tang Empire, and in the end, the Tang Army suffered from the betrayal of its allies and suffered from the enemy on its back, losing to the Arab Empire, resulting in a great defeat and directly losing control of the Anxi Protectorate.

In this life, since Chen Fei had already anticipated the ambitions of the Arab Empire, how could he allow them to be so arrogant?

After thinking about it for a long time, Chen Fei planted spies in the caravan to the Silk Road, intending to find out the movements of the Arab Empire.

At the end of the year, he received a report from the spies: the Arab Empire and the Western Turks were busy with the war in the west, and almost all the young people in the country participated in the war in the west.

After receiving the news, Chen Fei immediately reported to Li Shimin. Li Shimin also attached great importance to this news, and asked the ministers for their opinions in the morning of the next day. More than half of the ministers felt the need to teach the Arab Empire a lesson, and it would be best if they could fight them to destroy the country.

Now that the treasury has enough grain and grass, it can fully support a large-scale war, Li Shimin immediately ordered to call 30,000 soldiers in Guanzhong, 20,000 soldiers in Anxi and 20,000 in Beiting, a total of 70,000 soldiers, to launch a tentative attack on the Arab Empire!

The war has once again begun!

(End of chapter)